The Crow and the Rabbit I
A Fable of Verenis
There once was a white rabbit named Healintis.
She lived at the edge of a silent field,
where the grass was soft,
the wind was gentle,
and the paths never reached farther
than her eyes could follow.
There she knew the trees.
There she knew the scent of the earth.
There she knew when evening would fall
and where she could rest safely.
Often, Healintis looked toward the dark forest beyond.
Not because she wanted to go there.
But because she felt
that something was waiting there
which she did not yet understand.
One night, when the moon hung low
and the silence was almost audible,
she saw, between the roots of ancient trees,
a narrow passage
she had never noticed before.
She hesitated.
The opening was not large.
Not threatening.
And yet it felt different
from everything she knew.
Then a shadow fell over her.
Startled, Healintis looked up.
High above her,
on the dead branch of an oak,
sat a gigantic raven.
His feathers were darker than the night.
His head seemed shaped from ancient metal.
His beak was long and narrow,
sharp as a scythe
that did not reap,
but pointed.
The tree creaked beneath his weight.
“Who are you?” Healintis whispered.
The raven slowly bowed his head.
“They call me Noctyrnis Kain.”
Healintis took a small step back.
“Are you dangerous?”
Noctyrnis did not move.
“Only to those who think
comfort is the same as truth.”
Healintis looked back at the field behind her.
There lay everything that was soft.
Everything that was familiar.
Everything she knew.
Then she looked again at the dark passage
between the roots.
“I do not know what lies beyond it,” she said.
“Perhaps you never will,” Noctyrnis Kain softly rasped.
“Careful rabbits rarely dare to open hidden doors.”
Healintis swallowed.
“So I have to go inside?”
“No,” said Noctyrnis.
That answer surprised her.
The raven looked toward the passage.
“You do not have to do anything.
But not everything unknown
wishes to harm you.”
Healintis was silent.
Inside her small body, she felt tension.
No panic.
No urge to flee.
Something else.
As if she stood exactly
on the border
between what she knew
and what might be calling her.
“Why does it feel so uncomfortable?” she asked.
The enormous raven slowly spread his wings,
and for a moment it seemed
as if the night itself grew larger.
“Because not everything that grows
begins softly.
Because some doors
can only be felt
when you stop trying
to understand everything at once.
Because wonder
sometimes first appears
as tension.”
Healintis looked down at her paws.
She was small.
The forest was vast.
The passage was silent.
And above her watched a being
who seemed to carry
both threat
and meaning.
“And if I am afraid?” she asked.
“Then listen,” said Noctyrnis.
“And if I doubt?”
“Then look again.”
“And if I do not know what I am meant to find?”
Then the great raven leaned slightly forward.
“Perhaps you do not need to find anything.
Perhaps you only need to be willing
to meet something within yourself
that has not yet been seen by you.”
Healintis looked back one last time
at the familiar field.
It did not seem bad.
Only smaller than before.
Then she slowly placed
one white paw
across the threshold.
The air beyond the passage was colder.
The trees stood more crooked.
The shadows were deeper.
Nothing felt comfortable.
But everything felt alive.
And as Healintis walked on,
she felt that her tension
was not made only of fear.
There was something else inside it.
Curiosity.
Attention.
The first form of growth.
Above her, the heavy wings
of Noctyrnis Kain sounded once more.
Not as a threat.
Not as a command.
But as a reminder.
That not everything which feels strange
must be avoided.
And that growth sometimes begins exactly there
where certainty ends.
A little farther on, the forest opened.
Behind it lay a garden.
No ordinary garden.
A garden without a map.
And above that garden hung a night
that did not yet know
it would one day be made lighter
by a white rabbit.
✶
Dare, like the brave white rabbit,
to look beyond your first hesitation.
For not everything that seems dark is lost.
Sometimes it is precisely there
that what still needs to be found
lies hidden.
Alleen door de duisternis heen, kan het licht werkelijk zichtbaar worden.
Geschilderd door V
Sommige gasten zijn onderdeel van het dessert geworden.
De Reiziger kwam af op een feestmaal.
Niet omdat hij wist wat het was.
Maar omdat hij honger had.
En omdat er een geur hing die hij nergens mee kon vergelijken.
Een geur van parfum die bijna onmogelijk heerlijk rook.
—
Op de tafel lagen witte chocolade.
Cake.
Marsepein.
En rode vruchten die glansden alsof ze net waren geplukt.
—
Boven de tafel keek een geel zonnig hoofd hem aan.
Het bood hem zwijgend een appel aan.
De Reiziger keek ernaar.
Het hoofd glimlachte.
Iets te enthousiast.
—
“Dank je,” zei de Reiziger voorzichtig.
Het hoofd glimlachte alleen maar harder.
Dat hielp niet.
—
Toen bewoog het water achter de tafel.
Een elegante, naakte vrouw stapte langzaam uit de oceaan.
—
Ze keek naar het feestmaal.
Toen naar de Reiziger.
“De vruchten glanzen.”
Toen keek Reiziger haar glanzende lichaam.
“De lichamen verzamelen zich.”
Ze keek naar de tafel.
“De tafel stroomt over van genot.”
—
“Maar niets hier geeft zichzelf volledig prijs in Verenis.”
—
De Reiziger keek haar aan.
“Wie bent u?”
—
De vrouw glimlachte.
“Dat maakt voor nu nog niet uit.”
Een kleine pauze.
“Mysteries houden de geest jong.”
—
Ze raakte zachtjes zijn schouder aan.
—
“Alles lijkt binnen handbereik,”
zei ze.
“Terwijl het tegelijkertijd stilletjes ver weg blijft.”
—
“Alsof het feest nooit alleen bedoeld was voor honger.”
Ze keek hem aan.
“Maar voor herkenning.”
—
“De suiker verzacht.”
“Het rood verdiept zich.”
“En onder de fluwelen glans wacht iets wat je niet verwacht.”
—
Ze boog iets naar voren.
“Zonder ooit te vragen om aangeraakt te worden.”
—
“Niet alles wat mooi is…”
zei ze zacht,
“wil worden genomen.”
—
“Verenis wacht geduldig.”
“Totdat jij klaar bent om te komen.”
—
Een lange stilte.
—
Toen draaide ze zich om.
En met een stem die totaal niet paste bij haar elegante verschijning schreeuwde ze plotseling:
“ADAAAAAMMMM!”
—
De Reiziger verstijfde.
De vrouw liep rustig verder.
Alsof er niets gebeurd was.
Verenis waits with patience, until you are ready to arrive.
✶The Crow and the Rabbit II
A rabbit named Healintis stood alone
before the Garden Without a Map.
Above her hung a moonless night sky.
In this garden, it was always night.
No morning had ever touched the leaves there.
No sun had ever stood between the branches.
Everything that grew in this garden
grew strangely in the dark.
—
At first, everything seemed still.
Then the air began to shift very slowly,
as if invisible fingers
were stroking through the darkness.
The stars drifted apart.
The night did not become lighter,
but strangely a little less dark,
as if the deepest black
had been drawn out of the sky.
—
That blackness gathered above the garden.
It turned.
It folded.
It grew feathers.
A silver beak.
Hidden eyes
that seemed to see everything.
Then Noctyrnis Kain landed
before the white rabbit.
Not as if he had arrived.
But as if the night
had finally decided
to take on a form.
—
His head slowly bowed toward her.
“You have arrived
in the Garden Without a Map,” he said.
“But be careful
not to lose yourself here.
Not in the paths.
In yourself.”
—
From some of the branches hung apples.
Bright red apples.
Almost luminous.
So many
that it made her uneasy.
They gleamed
as if they had just been polished,
as if they had not grown
to be eaten,
but to be seen.
—
Above her, Noctyrnis Kain scraped his claws
against the dead branch.
Once.
Twice.
Then came a caw.
Loud.
Violent.
So sharp
that Healintis pressed her ears down,
as pain shot through
her too-sensitive hearing.
Even the leaves seemed to flinch.
—
Healintis froze.
She became whiter than white.
Not from the sound alone,
but from what it had revealed.
A serpent came slithering,
trying to hide among the leaves
and the bright red apples.
Its skin was deep emerald green.
Cold.
Almost polished.
Slowly.
Almost politely.
As if it knew
that whatever truly tempts
does not need to hunt.
Only to wait.
Patiently.
Like a spider
that trusts its web.
—
For a moment,
its head lifted toward Healintis.
Its tongue slipped from its mouth,
thin and patient,
with a small thread of saliva
catching the light.
But her long, brave rabbit ears
remained lifted toward Noctyrnis Kain.
Still alert.
Still hopeful.
—
“As long as you can see what tempts you,”
he said, more softly now,
“it does not have to lead you.”
The snake settled deeper among the leaves.
For a moment,
its emerald skin still caught the light.
Then even that disappeared.
—
The great raven scratched nervously
at the side of his head
with one sharp claw,
rather less majestically
than he might have preferred.
For a moment,
the great raven said nothing.
Then, quieter than before, he added:
“But some dangers
are not always kind enough
to remain visible.”
—
Healintis swallowed.
And somewhere among the leaves,
nothing moved.
Which somehow made it worse.
For a brief moment,
Healintis grew pale again.
—
“The need to possess.
The need to understand.
The need to hold on.
And yes — even a hidden snake.
These can lead a traveler
farther from the core
than any darkness ever could.”
—
“That is why Verenis guards something precious,”
said Noctyrnis.
His voice was cold,
but not cruel.
“Integrity.
Not as a rule.
But as a compass.
Not as a limitation.
But as a protection.
Not as a wall.
But as a threshold.”
—
His gaze pointed with his long beak
toward the apples.
“For some things are made so striking
that you forget to ask
why they wish to be seen.”
—
The garden grew stiller.
Even the leaves seemed
to hold back their rustling.
Noctyrnis lowered his head slightly.
“Some secrets do not open
by searching harder.
Some hide themselves precisely
from those who grasp too eagerly.
They appear only
when the searching falls silent.
When attention becomes pure.
When desire gives way
to presence.”
—
At that moment,
the earth beside them moved.
A small mole emerged from the ground.
Its nose trembled.
Its small blind face
turned slowly toward the sky,
astonished,
as if it had only just understood
that above the earth
another world
had been waiting all along.
Behind him,
two more moles appeared.
Hesitant.
Astonished.
But the first mole kept looking
at Healintis the longest.
Patiently.
In wonder.
As if he could feel
that something was about to happen to her.
—
Then, from somewhere deep within the garden,
a small sound was heard.
Not loud.
Not near.
But unmistakable.
“Cuckoo.”
—
Noctyrnis Kain looked directly at Healintis.
Not kindly.
Not cruelly.
But with a cold, severe stillness
that made even the garden seem to listen.
—
“Whoever dares to look at me,”
rasped Noctyrnis,
“does not have to lose themselves in it.”
Healintis exhaled slowly.
—
“The night does not break you
because it is dark,” he said.
“It breaks you only
when you refuse to look.
If you have been coddled too long
by fairy tales and rainbows,
then every shadow
seems like an ending.
But the world is not a fairy tale.
And sometimes the brightest eyes
carry the finest lies.”
—
His silver beak caught
a trace of starlight.
“That is why you must first
remain faithful to your own light.”
Healintis looked at the apples.
Then at the branches
where the snake had disappeared.
Then at Noctyrnis.
—
“Remember this well,” he said.
“In the deepest nights
I will be there to help you grow.
For my name is Noctyrnis.
The night.”
—
For the first time,
Healintis heard something strange
in the rasp of his voice.
Something small.
Something almost warm.
A slight emotion,
hidden behind a head
that seemed to be made of cold steel.
—
And then something happened to her.
She became whiter again.
But this time
not because of fear.
The whiteness began to glow
from within her.
Bright.
Still.
As if her inner compass
had finally begun to tremble less.
Not because the danger had disappeared,
nor because the world
had become safer,
but because she dared
to face Noctyrnis Kain
without needing
to be shattered by him.
—
Without having to look directly
into the fracture of his darkness.
Without being drawn toward
the silent depth
where Theroxis Kain waited —
the serpent with a dragon’s head
and a sword hidden in its silence.
For not every darkness
has to be entered
to be understood.
And not every abyss
deserves the gaze
of the one still learning to stand.
—
Without confusing it
with her own heart.
And because of that,
the brave rabbit understood
that she did not need
to experience everything
in order to know
that it existed.
—
The nights passed
in the Garden Without a Map.
For days did not exist there.
Healintis wandered.
But less.
She hesitated.
But no longer
as she once had.
—
Sometimes she looked at the apples
and walked on.
Sometimes she heard the snake moving
and remained still
until her breathing became calm.
Sometimes she felt fear rising
like mist between the bushes.
Noctyrnis did not always appear then.
But at such moments
the night seemed to fold itself
a little closer around her,
as if he were still there.
—
And with every night,
Healintis grew a little more.
Not through power.
Nor through possession.
But by remaining faithful
to the light
that was growing within her.
—
Then, after nights beyond counting,
something happened
that the garden had never known.
Healintis stood at the end of the path.
No longer as the hesitant white rabbit
who had entered.
But as a proud, luminous hare.
—
Her fur shone so brightly
that the eternal night around her
began to fade.
The stars softened.
The apples lost their enchanted glow.
And somewhere among the leaves,
the serpent became visible again.
—
And above the garden,
something slowly opened
that had never existed there before.
Day.
Not because the time had come.
But because Healintis
had become light enough.
—
Noctyrnis Kain sat on a crooked branch
at the edge of the new light.
He looked at her.
His hidden eyes seemed to know more
than they ever revealed.
This too.
—
Healintis turned toward him.
She understood
that he had helped her move forward.
And because he embodied the night,
he could not go with her.
He could shape her.
He could carry her.
He could teach her
how to see in the dark.
But the warmth of a summer day
was something he could not become.
—
The luminous hare
took one step forward.
Then another.
Behind her,
Noctyrnis remained
in the shadow
of the last night.
She would always miss him.
—
Yet, every so often,
the two still meet in the twilight,
when the moon is also the sun
in the Garden Without a Map.
And in those moments,
even Verenis seems
to fall silent
and listen.
Misschien waren haar lange hazen oren groter dan zijn stilte.✶
Then Veli... touched one string of her harp.
The reader would later insist
that it had meant nothing.
✶ Over het Krassen
Noctyrnis krast wanneer hij waarschuwt.
Hij krast wanneer hij een waarheid bewaakt.
En soms krast hij wanneer woorden niet groot genoeg zijn voor wat hij probeert te zeggen.
Daarom luisteren de meesten naar zijn woorden.
Maar enkelen luisteren naar het gekras ertussen.✶
✶
Toen keek de Reiziger nog één keer achterom.
In de schemering leek in de tuin de maan heel even op de zon.
Of dacht hij dat maar?
Hij kneep zijn ogen samen.
De vorm was hetzelfde.
Het licht was anders.
En toch…
heel even had hij gezworen dat hij niet naar de maan keek.
De Spiegel volgde zijn blik.
“Wat zie je?”
De Reiziger aarzelde.
“Ik weet het niet.”
De Schaduw keek eveneens omhoog.
De maan was alweer gewoon de maan.
Alsof er niets gebeurd was.
Alsof er nooit iets gebeurd was.
Toch bleef de Reiziger kijken.
Net iets langer dan nodig.
“Voor een moment,” zei hij zacht,
“had ik het gevoel dat de maan de zon was.”
De Spiegel glimlachte.
“Dat klinkt als iets wat jij zou zeggen.”
Maar de Schaduw lachte niet.
Hij bleef naar de hemel kijken.
Alsof hij zelf ook niet helemaal zeker wist wat hij had gezien.
Toen keek de Schaduw nog één keer omhoog.
“Misschien dat sommige dingen elkaar nooit helemaal kunnen worden.”
De Spiegel knikte.
“Maar soms wel even kunnen raken.”
Hij zweeg even.
Daarna verscheen er een kleine glimlach op zijn gezicht.
“Denk je,” vroeg hij,
“dat Healintis en Noctyrnis misschien verliefd waren op elkaar?”
De Reiziger keek naar de hemel.
De Schaduw naar de bomen.
Niemand antwoordde.
Alsof het verhaal zelf niet wist
of het die vraag wilde beantwoorden.
Voor één zeldzaam moment waren ze het eens.
Toen liepen de drie verder.
En achter hen bleef de schemering hangen,
alsof zij een geheim bewaarde
dat zelfs de nacht niet durfde uit te spreken.
✶
Sorry als ik hier de romantiek bederf,
maar wat dit oproept gaat dieper dan enkel aantrekking of simpele lust.
You are still standing within the first book — Healintis…
yet here, for the first time,
you already feel something of the fifth book: Secretis.
A whisper
of what comes later.
For after the second book — The Mirrors
—
the deeper layers truly begin to unfold.
And beyond all of them,
only one letter remains.
V
